


Vino & Voltaire

by octothorpetopus



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Bisexual Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr., Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr. Cooks, Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr. Has a Crush, Episode: s21e06 Murdered at a Bad Address, First Dates, First Kiss, Hurt Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr., Lawyer Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr., M/M, Minor Rafael Barba/Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr., Post-Episode: s21e06 Murdered At A Bad Address, Sweet Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr., anyway this is the new barisi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-02-01 00:56:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21303062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/octothorpetopus/pseuds/octothorpetopus
Summary: Carisi gives Holmes the dinner he owes him, and realizes he hasn't felt this way in a long time. Since a chilly February almost two years ago, to be precise.
Relationships: Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr./Isaiah Holmes, Rafael Barba/Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr.
Comments: 14
Kudos: 63





	Vino & Voltaire

Sonny Carisi checks his watch again. He's not really sure why, he's fifteen minutes early. And yet, he can't seem to calm the nervous snare drummer in his heart, even though his Apple Watch keeps telling him to breathe. It's just dinner with an old professor, an old friend, really, no different than when he went for drinks with one of his former coworkers from Staten Island last month.

So why does it feel so different?

He doesn't get a chance to answer that, because it is at that exact moment in time that a yellow taxi pulls up to the sidewalk. The door opens and Sonny starts just a bit, because he can't recall Isaiah Holmes ever wearing anything other than suits, and certainly not leather jackets. But then he smiles, that narrow-eyed, Mona Lisa smile, and Sonny can't help but smile back.

"Long time, no see, counselor." Sonny shifts from foot to foot, his hands still shoved in his pockets, suddenly self-conscious of his jean jacket and Ramones T-shirt. What's the proper greeting? Handshake? Hug? He decides on handshake, which Holmes graciously returns.

"Thanks for not waiting to call me. If you hadn't, I'd be at some police gala right now, bored out of my mind trying to keep people from asking about Keane."

"Well, when I owe someone dinner, I find it best to get it out of the way sooner rather than later. And I figured it'd be a chance for us to actually catch up." Holmes nods and looks Sonny up and down.

"I wanna be your boyfriend," he says, and Sonny nearly has a heart attack.

"Huh?"

"Your shirt," Isaiah replies. "The Ramones? 'I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend?'"

"Oh." Sonny grinds his fingernails into his palms and prays that the shaking in his voice is just his imagination. "Yeah, I don't- I don't actually listen to them." Isaiah stares at him for a moment, then bursts out laughing.

"You have a T-shirt for a band you... don't listen to?" Sonny shrugs.

"I got it in a secret Santa exchange a few years ago. An old friend used... he used to love them." Sonny shakes his head, clearing his mind of memories of the punk music that used to echo through 1 Hogan Place late at night, when everyone else had gone home. He smiles again, although this time, he has to force it. "Anyway, I'm glad you said yes. And I'm glad you were there to help me with the case today. I don't know what I would've done without you."

"You would have figured it out. I'm sure of it." Sonny feels himself flush from his neck to the tips of his ears, the same way he used to when his mom complimented him to his priest or when he got the NYPD medal of valor.

"Should we head in? We're a few minutes early for our reservation, but my second cousin owns the place, I'm sure he can fit us in." Isaiah regards him carefully for a moment. "What?"

"Nothing, you're just... very, very Italian." Sonny chuckles, and just like that, the tension dissipates.

"So they tell me," he says, and grabs the door.

Conversation flows light and easy, as does the wine, as they sit at a secluded table in the back of the restaurant, illuminated only by golden candlelight.

"This is really great," Sonny says, taking another long, slow sip. "Where on earth did you find it?"

"My ex-husband and I went on a wine-tasting trip to Spain last year. We found this one at a tiny vineyard just outside of Málaga."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't hear about your divorce."

"You've been out of my class for three years. There's nothing to be sorry for."

"I guess I'm sorry we haven't seen each other since, then."

"Yeah, I miss having someone in class that isn't a 23-year-old know-it-all. It was nice having someone with a little more life experience under their belt."

"I miss having friends that understood my life." Sonny shakes his head and smiles softly. "Sorry. Heavy."

"Don't worry about it. I don't mind heavy." Isaiah's eyes are kind and warm and Sonny feels like he's swimming in them. Their food comes before he can say anything else, and he's thankful to have something to distract him from the tightness of Isaiah's leather jacket over his arms and the clean, angular sweep of his features.

"So, Keane," he says finally. "How have you managed it for this long? How long have you been managing it, for that matter?"

"Hmm, about three years," Isaiah says, and Sonny gives a low whistle of surprise. He shrugs and takes another bite of lasagna. "We handle most of the cases anyway. His deputies oversee the department for him."

"And when someone requests a meeting with him?"

"We tell them no. You'd be surprised how rarely people question it."

"I don't suppose you'd consider a lateral move? We could use some more people like you in Manhattan. And honestly, it'd be nice to have a friendly face in the office."

"Sorry, Dominick, but I've lived in Queens my whole life. It's my home."

"I get that," Sonny replies, and tries not to wince. The last person to call him Dominick said it with so much pain in his voice that Sonny felt as though it somehow might have ruined his given name forever. "I don't think I could ever leave New York." Then again, the last person to say that, too, left, hadn't he? Maybe no one was destined to stay in New York. Maybe it just wasn't that kind of place.

"Sonny?" He is snapped from his thoughts by Isaiah gently shaking his arm. "Are you okay? You seem distracted."

"It's nothing." Sonny shakes his head, trying to clear the cobwebs. "Just..." He regards Isaiah, who stares back at him in earnest. His face is open and honest and vulnerable. "You remind me of someone. He was a sort of mentor for me too. I have his job now, funnily enough." Isaiah nods knowingly.

"Mr. Barba."

"Yeah. And it's just so... bizarre to be working with you. Because you remind me so much of him. Of the way I- well, how he-"

"Were you in love with him?" Isaiah asks, and Sonny freezes. He was, of course he was, but he had never said it. But admitting that would be admitting that Isaiah reminded him of the man he was in love with, which meant that he was in love with Isaiah too. And wasn't he? Had he been in love when Isaiah was his professor? No, he didn't think so. At least, not in this way. Because then, there had been Barba, an entirely different subject for his affections. So that was the question, or at least one of many. Was he really in love with Isaiah, or was it just a projections of his old love, objectless, gone to waste?

"Yes," he says, finally. Because the answer to that other question is no. As much as Isaiah is like Rafael, he's different, too. He's kind and helpful and makes Sonny laugh, and always has. And he won't leave, at least not now. "Yeah, I was in love with him."

"Oh," Isaiah replies simply. "Sorry, I probably shouldn't have asked that. It's a weird thing to talk about with your professor."

"You're not my professor," Sonny says, answering the unasked question in Isaiah's eyes. "You're my friend."

"Am I?"

"'It is the first law of friendship that it has to be cultivated. The second is to be indulgent when the first law is neglected.'"

"Voltaire." Isaiah smiles appreciatively.

"I learned from the best." They return to eating in a peaceful silence, for which Sonny is partially thankful. Still, he cannot quiet that nagging feeling that Isaiah _knows, _that he knows and he's not doing anything about it.

When dinner's over, Isaiah offers to walk Sonny home. It's only a few blocks, and it's a nice night, he says. It's not a nice night. It's blustery and cold and Sonny wishes he had another jacket. Still, Isaiah strolls along like it's a warm 60 degrees instead of a frigid 20, and Sonny's glad for the company.

"This is me," he says, barely wanting to stop, barely wanting to break the first comfortable silence he's had in a long time.

"I had a good time tonight." Isaiah squeezes Sonny's arm, and Sonny feels his soul exit his body, along with all of the words he's wanted to say all night and some he didn't even mean to.

"I think I like you," he blurts, and before he can stop himself, the rest follows. "I was in love with Rafael and in a lot of ways, you do remind me of him, but I don't like you because you remind me of him, I like you despite the fact that you remind me of him. Because as clever as he was, he was also cold and hurtful. But you, you're kind and you care about your job and the people you fight for. And you can quote philosophers and punk bands at the drop of a hat and have really great taste in wine and honestly, you're kind of gorgeous. And I don't really know if me telling you this is unethical, because you were my professor, but you haven't been for a long time. You know my life and how crazy it is. You get it. You get me. So yeah, I like you. I like you a lot." Isaiah just stares at him for a moment. Sonny feels like he's shrinking under his gaze.

And then, before he knows what is happening, one of Isaiah's hands is wrapped around the collar of his jacket, the other resting against his jaw, and Isaiah is pulling him close into a long, slow kiss. Sonny does nothing, just lets himself be pulled forward, his hands slipping under Isaiah's leather jacket and wrapping around to the small of his back, tugging himself closer. After what seems like just hours and just seconds, Isaiah pulls away, his angled face flushing a dark red in the light of the street lamp.

"I like you too," he says. Sonny laughs.

"Thank god." He considers momentarily. "Just out of curiosity, did you like me when I was your student, or...?"

"Hell no. I've never fallen for a current student, and I don't intend to. But when you called a few days ago and asked me to get a drink with you, that's when I started to think about it. And I haven't stopped thinking about it since. I don't change my mind often, but you... you make me want to change the whole world."

"Well, you know what they say. 'Change everything except your loves.'" Sonny pauses on the steps of his apartment building. "Do you... want to come up?" Isaiah shrugs.

"Depends. Are you going to quote Voltaire again?"

"Are you asking because you think it's hot, or because you want me to stop?"

"Oh, definitely because it's hot," Isaiah replies, and Sonny lets himself be pulled down into another kiss.

They go upstairs, and when Sonny finally drifts off to sleep, with Isaiah's broad arms draped over him, for the first night in almost two years, he doesn't think about Rafael.


End file.
